“It doesn’t.”
She arched one dark eyebrow. “And why not?”
Because the bitch had been dragged into the pits of hell, and hopefully, that was exactly where she’d remain. Not that I could tell Hunter that, because I wanted to keep the truth about the second key from her for as long as possible.
“Because we’re having trouble finding Lauren Macintyre, the sorceress behind the theft. It appears she’s not only a face shifter, but a hermaphrodite capable of full-body transformation.”
Hunter raised her eyebrows. “That is an ability I’ve only ever seen once in the thousands of years I’ve been alive. Are you sure she’s not just using magic to transform herself?”
“We’re sure.” After all, Lauren had even used my face at one point . . . The thought stalled, and I swore. If she had somehow managed to break free from hell, what was stopping her from taking on my appearance and questioning—or even killing—someone I loved? If she could do it once, she could do it again. I scrubbed a hand across my eyes. This whole fucking thing was getting more and more complicated. The sooner we found Lauren, the better—for both the quest and everyone I’d dragged into it. “I don’t suppose you know of any way to track someone like that down?”
“As a face shifter yourself, surely you should sense when you are in the vicinity of another?”
I grimaced. “If she were a werewolf and vampire or another kind of shifter, I’d sense that. But face shifting requires a different type of internal magic, and it’s not one that can be picked up by normal sensory means.”
“That is unfortunate.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “We’re trying to track down a couple of aliases we think she might be using, but it’s taking time.”
“Time you haven’t got,” she drawled. “I really do need the remaining keys in my possession by the end of the week.”
The fear churning my gut rose in my throat, and it was all I could do not to puke all over my damn desk. “It’s impossible to give you that sort of guarantee. I have no power over the speed of computers, for starters—”
“Then use other methods, my dear,” she continued evenly. I might not have spoken for all the impact my words seemed to have made. “You seem to be very chummy with the Brindle witches at the moment, so why not ask one of them to do a scrying for you? Or perhaps use some item of the sorceress to uncover a location?”
“Great idea, except we’ve tried the first and can’t do the second until we actually have something of the sorceress’s.”
That we actually did have something was a point I wasn’t about to mention. We’d already tried to use it to find the sorceress, and we’d come damn close to snaring her, too. But events since then had left us with little time to make a second attempt.
Besides, if the sorceress was still in hell, how would that affect any attempt at scrying? Or even the use of psychometry? Would it actually work? Or would it be dangerous for the practitioner to even try to locate our sorceress? Hell wasn’t a place you messed with, in any way, shape, or form. Unless, of course, you were a dark practitioner—and our sorceress had certainly shown very little fear or concern about playing in the underworld’s gardens.
“I do not care about your problems,” Hunter said. “I merely care about the end results.”
I closed my eyes and resisted the urge to scream. We had a week. The fates had also warned that this would all end in a week. Did Hunter have a direct line to those in charge? She drew her power from an old god, after all, so it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility.
You have nothing to lose by agreeing to her demands, Azriel noted. And time—as well as the space to move—to gain.
But only if she doesn’t throw another wrench in the works. I opened my eyes and stared at Hunter for several seconds. I don’t think I’d ever hated anyone as much as I hated her right then, and it was galling to think that I hadn’t seen what she was—or what she was capable of—from the very first moment our paths had crossed and I’d agreed to work for her. And sure, she hadn’t exactly made it easy for me to refuse, but the truth was, it was my desperate need to avenge my mother’s death that had gotten me into this pickle, nothing else.
“Why,” I asked eventually, keeping my voice as even as I could, “is it necessary for you to have the keys within a week? It’s not like hell’s going anywhere.” Although it would bleed all over Earth—create a new playground for all hell’s nightmares—if we didn’t stop the sorceress from opening the final gate.
“Because I find it necessary to bring forward my own plans,” she answered blithely. “There are certain . . . shall we say, elements . . . within the council that are gathering momentum. I find myself in need of a little something extra to contain the groundswell before it gains too much force.”
Meaning, in other words, that Harry Stanford, Markel, and everyone else involved with the “get rid of Hunter” movement had better start watching their backs very carefully.
“I really don’t think it’s wise to be using hell as some sort of—”
“And I really don’t care what you think,” Hunter snapped, green eyes glittering with both anger and darkness. And perhaps, if I looked closely enough, madness. “You will do as I desire or pay the price.”
“Fine,” I growled, clenching my fists under the desk in an effort not to smash one through her image on the vid-phone’s screen. “You’ll have both keys by the end of the week.”
“Good,” she murmured. “Although there is one additional point I forgot to mention.”
Of course there was, I thought darkly. There was always one more damn point. “And what might that be?”
“The second key. I want it in my hands by eight o’clock tomorrow morning, or people will start dying.”
Chapter 4